This question might not keep you awake at night. But it is worth pondering: Who has access to your farm's production data? You know all that information you generate when you write planting prescriptions, spray your fields or harvest your crops? It is information you worked hard -- and on which you spent a lot of money on equipment -- to create. Used correctly, it can mean increased production, greater efficiency and more profitability.

"I collect this stuff, and it has value to me," says Plains, Kan., farmer Clint Reiss. It has value to other people, too.